Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/39

EPHIALTES. the act of throwing down the Trojan wall, above ■which rose the head of the wooden horse. (Pans. X. 26. § 1. [L. S.] EPE'RATUS {'Eir/ipaTos), of Pharae in Achaia, was elected general of the Achaeans in B. c. 219, by the intrigues of Apelles, the adviser of Philip V. of Macedonia, in opposition to Timoxenus, who was supported by Aratus. Eperatus was held universally in low estimation, and was in fact totally unfit for his office, on which he entered in B. c. 218, so that, when his year had expired, he left numerous difficulties to Aratus, who succeeded him. (Polyb. iv. 82, v. 1, 5, 30, 91 ; Plut. ^ra^ 48.) [E. E.] E'PHESUS (*'E(/)6(ros), a son of the river-god Caystnis, who was said, conjointly with Cresus, to have built the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and to have called the town after himself. (Paus. vii. 2. § 4.) [L. S.] EPHIALTES ('Ec^ja'ATTjs), one of the giants, who in the war against the gods was deprived of his left eye by Apollo, and of the right by Hera- cles. (Apollod. i. 6. § 2.) Respecting another personage of this name see Aloeidae. [L. S.] EPHIALTES {'EcpidXT-ns). 1. A Malian, who, in B. c. 480, when Leonidas Avas defending the pass of Thermopylae, guided the body of Persians called the Immortals over the mountain path (the Anopaea), and thus enabled them to fall on the j rear of the Greeks. Fearing after this the ven [ geance of the Spartans, he fled into Thessaly, and i a price was set on his head by the Amphictyonic council. He ultimately returned to his country, [ and Avas put to death by one Athenades, a Trachi- I nian, for some cause unconnected with his treason, 1 but not further mentioned by Herodotus. (Her. vii. 213, &c. ; Paus. i. 4 ; Strab. i. p. 20 ; Poly- j aen. vii. 15.) i 2. An Athenian statesman and general, son of ' Sophonides, or, according to Diodorus, of Simonides, was a friend and partizan of Pericles, who is said by Plutarch to have often put him forward as the main ostensible agent in carrying political measures when he did not choose to appear prominently himself. (Ael. F. H. ii. 43, iii. 17; Plut. Peric. 7, Heip. Gerend. Praec. 15; Diod. xi. 77.) Thus, when the Spartans sent to ask the assistance of the Athenians against Ithome in B. c. 461, he endea- voured to prevent the people from granting the re- quest, urging them not to raise a fallen rival, but , to leave the spirit of Sparta to be trodden down ; and we find him mentioned in particular as chiefly ^ instrumental in that abridgment of the power of the Areiopagus, which inflicted such a blow on the , oligarchical party, and against which the " Eume- j nides" of Aeschylus was directed. (Arist. Polit. j ii. 12, ed. Bekk. ; Diod. I.e.; Plut. Cim. 10, 15, | 16, Perid. 7, 9; Cic. de Pep. i. 27.) By this mea- I sure Plutarch tells us that he introduced an un- mixed democracy, and made the city drunk with liberty; but he does not state clearly the precise powers of which the Areiopagus was deprived, nor is it easy to decide this point, or to settle whether it was the authority of the court or the council that Pericles and Ephialtes assailed. (For a full discus- sion of the question the reader is referred to Miil- ler, Eumen. §§ 35 — 37 ; Wachsmuth, Hist. Ant. vol. ii. p. 75, &c. Eng. transl. ; Hermann, Opusc. vol. iv. pp. 299 — 302, where the passages of De- mosthenes [c. Arist. p. 641] and of Lysias [de Coed, Erat. p. 94J are ably and satisfactorily re- EPIIIPPUS. 25 conciled ; Thirl wall's Greece^ vol. iii. pp. 23, 24 ; Diet, of Ant. s. v. Areiopagus; and the authors mentioned by C. F. Hermann, Pol. Ant. § 109, note 6.) The services of Ephialtes to the demo- cratic cause excited the rancorous enmity of some of the oligarchs, and led to his assassination during the night, probably in b. c. 456. It appears that in the time of Antiphon (see de Caed. Her. p. 1 37) the murderers had not been discovered; but we learn, on the authority of Aristotle (ap. Plut. Pe- ricl. 10), that the deed was perpetrated by one Aristodicus of Tanagra. The character of Ephi- altes, as given by ancient writers, is a high and honourable one, insomuch that he is even classed with Aristeides for his inflexible integrity. Hera- cleides Ponticus tells us that he was in the habit of throwing open his grounds to the people, and giv- ing entertainments to large numbers of them, — a statement which seems inconsistent with Aelian's account, possibly more rhetorical than true, of his poverty. (Plut. Cim. 10, Dem. 14; Ael. V. H. ii. 43, xi. 9, xiii. 39 ; Val. Max. iii. 8. Ext. 4 ; He- racl. Pont. 1.) 3. One of the Athenian orators whose surrender was required by Alexander in b. c. 335, after the destruction of Thebes, though Demades prevailed on the king not to press the demand against any but Charidemus. { Arv. Anah. i. 10; Plut. Z)em. 23, Phoc. 17; Diod. xvii. 16; Suid. s. v. 'Aj/tI- Trarpos.) 4. Plutarch (A lex. 41) mentions Ephialtes and Cissus as those who brought to Alexander the in- telligence of the treachery and flight of Harpalus in B. c. 324, and were thrown into prison by the king as guilty of calumny. The play of the comic poet Phrynichus, called "Ephialtes," does not seem to have had reference to any of the above persons, but rather to the Nightmare. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 152—154.) [E. E.] EPHICIA'NUS. [IPHiciANUs.] EPHIPPUS C'E</)t7r7ros), of Olynthus, a Greek historian of Alexander the Great. It is commonly believed, though no reason is assigned, that Ephip- pus lived about or shortly after the time of Alex- ander. There is however a passage in Arrian {Anah. iii. 5. § 4) which would determine the age of Ephippus very accurately, if it could be proved that the Ephippus there mentioned is identical with the historian. Arrian says, that Alexander before leaving Egypt appointed Aeschylus (the Rhodian) and Ephippus rov XaAKiSews, superin- tendants ('eTrio-KOTrot) of the administration of Egypt. The reading rou XaAKtSews, though adopted by the recent editors of Arrian, is not in all MSS., and some editions read XaKid6i'a or XaA/c7j5o^a ; but if we might emend XaA./ciSe'a, we should have reason for supposing that the person mentioned by Arrian is the same as Ephip- pus of Olynthus, for Olyiithus was the principal town in Chalcidice, and Ephippus might just as well be called a native of Olynthus as of Chalci- dice. If the Ephippus then in Arrian be the same as the historian, he was a contemporary of Alex- ander and survived him for some time, for he wrote an account of the king's burial. The work of Ephippus is distinctly referred to by Athenaeus only, though Diodorus and others also seem to have made use of it. Athenaeus calls it in some passages xept ttjj 'AXe^dvSpov Koi 'UcpaLariwvos jueTaAAa77js, and in others he has rcupijs or reKevTTJs instead of fx^ToWay^s, so that at all events wa